AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

As a long season winds down in Salt Lake City, we begin the transition to the offseason – both a look back at the results from the year that was, and a look forward to the future. In this year’s case, there will be somewhat more of the latter and less of the former than would typically be expected in Utah – we’ve had a pretty good idea what this year’s team was for quite a while now, and a look to the near and distant future will certainly make for more intrigue and fascination.

Falling somewhere between the two categories, as many elements of Utah’s offseason evaluation surely will given their personnel, is the issue of the Derrick Favors-Enes Kanter pairing in the frontcourt. It’s an issue I’ve tackled already this year, when I identified the struggles the pair were having on the court together as one of the more serious and worrisome issues going forward for a franchise surely banking on these two top-five picks to be a longtime frontcourt foundation. But that was nearly two months ago, and the issue is certainly worth revisiting as we approach year’s end. Coach Ty Corbin, whether having heard the pleas of many to get the duo more time together in what amounted to a lame duck season or simply having decided to do so on his own, has showcased Favors and Kanter for slightly longer periods as the year has gone on, so there’s certainly a large enough sample to work with as well.1

Put simply, some things have changed since then, but many (including much of the overall picture) have stayed the same. Offensively, in a trend that had begun to develop even before my previous piece in late January, the two have found their footing to a small degree.2 Well, let’s put that more accurately: Favors has found his footing and then some, while Kanter has actually somewhat regressed offensively.

While Enes has continued to use a very similar portion of possessions while the two share the court, his efficiency has dropped across the board, most notably a large decline in shooting. His mid-range game has fallen off at a remarkably alarming rate – his percentage on shots from 16 feet out or further has gone from 48.4%3 to a morbid 17.6% in the last two months with Favors also on the court, though he continues to shoot them just as often.4 He’s forcing up any partially open jumper available to him, and though they’re shots he’s capable of making, he’s shown very little situational selectivity – just because you can make a shot doesn’t make it a good shot, especially if there are other options available. Watch here, and note the time on the shot clock:

There are big men in this league with with a deserved license to take this look with 12 seconds on the shot clock anytime it’s available; Enes Kanter is not yet one of them.

Favors, on the other hand, has taken a big dip in usage over the last two months when the two share the court, but this has been accompanied by an equally large jump in offensive efficiency. He’s shooting the ball much more effectively, particularly from close to the hoop – he’s reversed an ugly sub-60% rate 5 from within three feet of the basket to a more acceptable (for his position) 73.9% since mid-January, a pretty huge increase for a guy who takes over 40% of his attempts from this range.6 His mid-range game remains spotty, but it’s still a big improvement on previous seasons and is at least enough to warrant a small amount of attention from defenders. Meanwhile, he remains a beast out of the pick-and-roll, in the league’s top 25 for per-possession efficiency, per Synergy Sports, and continues to hone an increasingly polished post game.

The overall result is, as I mentioned above, a departure from the sub-league-cellar numbers the pair were putting up earlier in the year, but not by too much. Favors’ improvement is a positive, though, and Kanter certainly won’t continue to hit under 20% of his longer range jumpers while they play together – of the two areas, the duo has certainly progressed more on offense.

Of course, that could also be because they haven’t progressed at all on defense. They’ve hardly budged an inch from their per-possession defensive numbers since my initial assessment in January, numbers that would rank them even lower than the league-worst figure the Jazz and Bucks currently share. Like on offense, though, the way they’ve gone about things has changed a bit, though many of the larger themes remain the same.

For starters, lineups with the two on the floor together continue to allow opponents remarkably high shooting percentages, including a nearly 50% figure overall from the floor that has remained relatively constant throughout the year. They’ve started defending medium mid-range shots more effectively, bringing their field-goal percentage against on looks between 10 and 15 feet down from well over 50% to a more manageable 44.2% the last two months. Unfortunately, they’ve allowed an unfavorable trade-off here – the percentage they allow from between four and nine feet has simultaneously risen nearly seven percent, and these shots are not only easier to make but also represent a far larger portion of total opponent field-goal attempts. They’ve also forced less turnovers than what was already a very low rate to begin with – in a general sense, the pair continues to appear to be too slow and laborious as a frontcourt defensive duo, one unable to prevent any decent opponent from creating spacing and good looks, and without the trickiness to make up for it by generating lots of turnovers.

But even more concerning, perhaps, has been the lackluster way the Jazz have rebounded with the two sharing the court. A problem earlier in the year that’s only gotten worse in recent months, these lineups are among the worst groups of any high-minute twosome on the team. They were already in the bottom half here before it, but since my first piece on January 22nd, of 28 two-man units that have logged at least 150 minutes for the Jazz, the Favors-Kanter unit ranks 27th, or second-last, in percentage of total rebounds collected:7

The reasons have ranged from mental lapses to flat-out laziness at times, but the results are simply not good enough from a duo many expected to be a premier rebounding force within the league. Given some of their other limitations, the pair simply has no chance as an effective defensive frontcourt going forward if they continue to anchor such subpar rebounding units.

Overall, there continue to be a ton of question marks and worries surrounding the presumed big tandem of the future. Far from the least of these is the simple fact that, regardless of which period of time you examine within the season, both players have performed significantly better while the other sits on the bench. Kanter remains the larger culprit of the two from a big-picture standpoint, particularly in terms of his wobbly offensive play of late, but Favors is far from blameless.8

And just as it was a couple months ago, this remains a big issue for the Jazz going forward. The front office would certainly have hoped for many more questions surrounding the pair, and particularly Kanter, to have been answered by the end of this year,9 but they may not entirely get their wish as the Jazz play a slate of relatively meaningless games to close the year. Properly evaluating this will be one of many difficult tasks ahead for Dennis Lindsey and crew this summer during an offseason that could prove to be a pivotal one for the next half-decade of Jazz basketball.

Ben Dowsett

Ben Dowsett is a life-long Jazz fan and current in-depth analyst based in Salt Lake City. He also writes for Basketball Insiders and BBallBreakdown, and can be heard on SCH Radio on ESPN 700 weekly. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.

7 Comments

I want this Favors/Kanter combo to stay together. I don’t think we need Julius Randle or Noah Vonleh in the draft. I’d rather that we get a 2 or a 3. If we can’t get Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, or Dante Exum (move him to shooting guard), then we should trade down for Zach LaVine, Gary Harris, or Rodney Hood. They can exceed expectations and become superstars they weren’t supposed to be. Paul George and Steph Curry were drafted 10th and 9th. It’s not the end of the world when we don’t win the draft lottery.

CW, I love it. This recent jump-shooting slump won’t continue forever, and his mechanics are solid. His post game, and particularly footwork, are sublime for a big man his age, and he continues to add in heady little details to his screening and off-ball game. As I’ve said a bunch this year, if he can somehow reach average defensively (a tall hill, but not impossible) he’s going to be a scary player to go against.

Timothy, I don’t agree that the Jazz should trade down if they can’t land a top-4 pick unless they could receive an asset of real value in return (ie a rotation player in a position of need who can shoot from distance). The depth and quality of this year’s class makes any pick, even a mid-lottery pick, significantly more valuable than a normal year, and that type of advantage should only be sacrificed if a great offer is on the table to help the team immediately. At least in my opinion, there’s still a ton of value in this draft beyond the names you mentioned, including the mid-20s where Utah’s pick from the Warriors will likely fall.

I’ll give you an example of draft night. Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins, and Dante Exum won’t fall the Jazz at #5.
Rodney Hood is probably going to fall to mid first round.
Chicago owns the Bobcats’ first rounder as well as their own, about 15th and 18th picks.
Chicago really wants Julius Randle, and the Jazz want Rodney Hood. So the Bulls trade up to number 5, and the Jazz move down to 15 and 18.

I suppose that’s not impossible, but in reality the specifics often make it a lot more difficult for all that to happen. Every front office rates talent differently, and given the depth of this draft, I doubt the Jazz will have only four or five players they rate highly. There’s also a reasonable chance they jump into the top three. Also, simply swapping the fifth pick for 15 and 18 is absolutely not balanced, and any trade would need to include other pieces which only increases the complexity.

I also think you are far too sure those four players will be picked in the first four slots – it’s possible one of them doesn’t even come out, and even if they all do a lot can change in three months. Putting all that together, plus they still have a pick in the mid-to-late first round, it’d have to be a really great offer to convince the Jazz to trade the fifth or sixth pick in what’s a great lottery.

Great update. I had wondered what the latest numbers were. Kanter is still learning a lot of the game. This year is really where we see how much he has to learn – is having to learn. But I also agree with the ‘don’t trade down.’ I think Noah or Randle could also be the real deal and could be good to push Enis – who it also seems might have had some entitled expectations for himself this season. But I do wish he and Favors could go out and work to try and dominate together – get it figured out. There is no reason they shouldn’t be able to. Might be as much chemistry issues as anything. They are both two very different personalities.

Side Notes

They’ve played 169 minutes together since my January piece, or 12.1 per night. That number is up to 13.5 a night since the beginning of March, per NBA.com.

A very small degree – their 99.2 points-per-100 in the time since would still only rank 26th league-wide, per NBA.com, but it’s still a big improvement on the badly sub-30th numbers they were putting up to start the year.

An elite figure for a big taking as many of these shots as he does.

Per nbawowy.com.

57.4%, ewww.

Again, these numbers are while sharing the court with Kanter and again, are courtesy of nbawowy.com.

With an unacceptable 46.4%, per NBA.com.

And it’s interesting to note that when Kanter teams with Jeremy Evans rather than Favors, as he has for nearly 700 minutes this year, the duo are over 10 full points-per-100 better than the Kanter-Favors pair, a massive discrepancy – though one mitigated somewhat by the fact that most of Evans’ minutes come against more bench-heavy units.

Because, again, the Turk becomes a restricted free-agent next summer if not re-signed by opening night next season, at risk of (occasionally ludicrous) offers from other teams the Jazz would be forced to match to retain him.